Chrome 5.0 Launched on the Beta Channel, Fastest Version So Far
Mountain View-based search engine Google has released Chrome 5.0.375.29 on the Beta channel. Google’s take on how the browser should look and work is available for free download to any Windows, Mac OS X or Linux users that want to get on the Beta train.
Google releases versions of the Chrome browser on three different channels: the developer channel, the beta channel and the stable channel. A new version is first rolled out to the dev channel; as bugs and kinks are worked out of the software it moves to the Beta channel; when all the issues are solved the software moves to the stable channel. This is precisely what happened with Chrome 5.0. It made it out of the dev channel and to the Beta channel. It shouldn’t be long until Chrome is released on the stable channel.
If you do decide to get Chrome 5.0 Beta, here are the bits and pieces you can expect to get:
- HTML5 Features: Geolocation, App Cache, web sockets, file drag-and-drop.
- Integrated Flash Player Plugin (Flash Player comes built into the Chrome browser)
- Preferences synchronization (similar to the Bookmark Sync feature in Chrome 4.0, this feature lets you sync browser preferences, like themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, and language).
- NaCl behind a flag
- V8 performance improvements
Putting the focus on the last item in the list above, on V8 performance improvements, just how fast in the JavaScript engine in Chrome 5.0 Beta? According to Software Engineer Mads Ager, Chrome 5.0 Beta shows a “30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release.” Compared to Chrome 1.0 Beta, Chrome 5.0 Beta shows a 213% and 305% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks.
Here are some images to put things in perspective.
Windows users can get on the Beta channel and download Chrome 5.0 Beta here.
Mac OS X users can get on the Beta channel and download Chrome 5.0 Beta here.
Linux users can get on the Beta channel and download Chrome 5.0 Beta here.
Google releases versions of the Chrome browser on three different channels: the developer channel, the beta channel and the stable channel. A new version is first rolled out to the dev channel; as bugs and kinks are worked out of the software it moves to the Beta channel; when all the issues are solved the software moves to the stable channel. This is precisely what happened with Chrome 5.0. It made it out of the dev channel and to the Beta channel. It shouldn’t be long until Chrome is released on the stable channel.
If you do decide to get Chrome 5.0 Beta, here are the bits and pieces you can expect to get:
- HTML5 Features: Geolocation, App Cache, web sockets, file drag-and-drop.
- Integrated Flash Player Plugin (Flash Player comes built into the Chrome browser)
- Preferences synchronization (similar to the Bookmark Sync feature in Chrome 4.0, this feature lets you sync browser preferences, like themes, homepage and startup settings, web content settings, and language).
- NaCl behind a flag
- V8 performance improvements
Putting the focus on the last item in the list above, on V8 performance improvements, just how fast in the JavaScript engine in Chrome 5.0 Beta? According to Software Engineer Mads Ager, Chrome 5.0 Beta shows a “30% and 35% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks over the previous beta channel release.” Compared to Chrome 1.0 Beta, Chrome 5.0 Beta shows a 213% and 305% improvement on the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks.
Here are some images to put things in perspective.
Windows users can get on the Beta channel and download Chrome 5.0 Beta here.
Mac OS X users can get on the Beta channel and download Chrome 5.0 Beta here.
Linux users can get on the Beta channel and download Chrome 5.0 Beta here.
